The Ecologist Vol 21 No 6 November/December 1991 J £3 (US $6) • Quotas and the Great Car Economy •FAO: Sustaining the Hunger Machine • The Case Against Climate Aid Environment's Dangerous Liaison ISSN D2bl-3131 1 1 The Religion and Politics of Earth First! 9"770261"313003 Price £3.50 per issue plus 50p postage for UK and £1 for Overseas. The Ecologist Recent Back Issues of The Ecologist Back Issues Dept. Worthyvale Manor, Camelford, Cornwall PL32 9TT Vol 21 No 2: including An Open Letter to Edouard Saouma, Director-General of FAO. The Ecologist The Ecologist Vol 21 No 1: including Larry Khalil Sesmou, FAO: An Insider's View; Lohmann, Who defends Vandana Shiva, The Failure of the Green Biological Diversity? Risto Revolution: A Case Study of the Punjab; Isomaki, Paper, Pollution Barbara Dinham, FAO and Pesticides: and Global Warming; Tim Promotion or Proscription? 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Editors The EDWARD GOLDSMITH NICHOLAS HILDYARD Ecologist Vol. 21, No. 6, November/December 1991 PETER BUNYARD PATRICK McCULLY Editorial Associate Editors PATRICIA ADAMS Quotas Against the Great Car Economy 234 Probe International (Canada) Simon Fairlie MARCUS COLCHESTER World Rainforest Movement (England) FAO 'Sets the Record Straight' 236 RAYMOND D ASM ANN University of California, Nicholas Hildyard Replies for The Ecologist 237 Santa Cruz (USA) SAMUEL S. EPSTEIN University of Illinois (USA) Feature Articles ROSS HUME HALL (USA) Sustaining the Hunger Machine: A Critique of FAO's SARD Strategy 239 SANDY IRVINE Nicholas Hildyard The Green Party (England) The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has recently announced an Agenda MICK KELLY for Action for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD). Taken University of East Anglia (England) at face value, SARD represents a significant victory for many of FAO's critics. MARTIN KHOR KOK PENG A close look behind the rhetoric of the new strategy, however, shows that FAO Consumers Association of is using the language of sustainability to promote many of the same discredited Penang (Malaysia) policies as before. SMITHU KOTHARI Lokayan Social Action Group (India) The Case Against Climate Aid 244 SIGMUND KVAL0Y Ecopolitical Ring of Cooperation Patrick McCully (Norway) A huge increase in international aid is seen by many as an essential element of LARRY LOHMANN (USA) any effort to deal with global warming. However, the history of aid and JOHN MILTON technology transfer is one of discredited economic theories, corruption and (USA) failure. There is no reason why climate aid should be any different. Emphasis­ JIMOH OMO-FADAKA ing the cost of dealing with global warming obscures the fact that the solutions African Environmental Network (Kenya) are political not financial. JOHNPAPWORTH Fourth World Review (England) Environment and Development: The Story of a Dangerous Liaison 252 ROBERT PRESCOTT-ALLEN Wolfgang Sachs PADATA (Canada) Governments and institutions have managed to overcome the critics of the JOHN SEED ecological and social costs of their activities by interpreting the problems as Rainforest Information Centre being due to poverty and inefficiency. These, in turn, are seen as a result of the (Australia) insufficient application of development policies. Development is thus trans­ VANDANASHIVA Research Centre for Science formed from destroyer to redeemer. and Ecology (India) HENRYK SKOLIMOWSKI University of Michigan The Religion and Politics of Earth First! 258 (USA) Bron Taylor ROBERT WALLER Commonwealth Human Ecology Centre Underpinning the ethics and actions of the radical US environmental group (England) Earth First! are fundamentally religious sentiments. The recent schism in the RICHARD WILLSON movement has less to do with disagreements about biocentric beliefs and more (England) with judgements about strategy and tactics. DONALD WORSTER University of Kansas (USA) Books 267 EDITORIAL OFFICE AGRICULTURE HOUSE, BATH ROAD, Letters 271 STURMINSTER NEWTON, DORSET, DT10 1DU, UK. Cover photo: Dave Foreman at Idaho Earth First! gathering in 1986 (David Cross/ TEL +44-258-73476 FAX +44-258-73748 Impact Visuals). The Ecologist is printed on recycled paper whitened with hydrogen E-MAIL GN:ECOLOGIST peroxide. The Ecologist, Vol. 21, No. 6, November/December 1991 233 Quotas Against the Great Car Economy "We are not going to do away with the great car economy" carbon in the atmosphere: the reduction required from the car Margaret Thatcher, 1990. economies of the industrialized world will be far greater. Let us then imagine a rigorous level of taxation: one geared Mrs Thatcher's words are memorable, and will doubtless find to reducing drastically Britain's emissions of C02 and other pol­ their way into future dictionaries of quotations. Whether or not we lutants; and to reflecting properly the costs that the car economy agree with her sentiments, there is no denying that her pithy imposes upon society. For the sake of argument, let us assume characterization of modern society is apt. We could not talk with measures that would reduce car traffic in Britain by 60 per cent, such conviction of the "great fridge economy", the "great television putting us back to the dark days of 1965. And suppose also that economy", nor even of the"great Coca Cola economy". If any one the revenue from this taxation was reinjected into the economy commodity is central to our way of life, it is the motor car. via measures such as public transport subsidies and VAT Since Mrs Thatcher's demise, the Conservative party has reduction. What might we expect? been publicly less gung-ho about "the great car economy". But Clearly, increases in petrol prices would hit rich and poor alike it continues to stand by the Department of Transport's forecast with the same impartial force; the financially strong might wince that road traffic will increase in Britain by between 83 and 142 per a little, the weak would be out for the count.